


Angel Face

by Deathclaw_for_Cutie



Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Bar fights, Developing Friendships, Drunken Flirting, F/M, Gen, Hittin' on Ghouls, Losing Bar Fights, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 07:43:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12526400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deathclaw_for_Cutie/pseuds/Deathclaw_for_Cutie
Summary: “Or what?” Sid stood up as straight as she could, lifted her chin to make herself look taller, bigger. The floor rocked under her feet. “You gonna hit me? Like you hit your ghoul back there? You the sorta man who’d hit a lady, Mr. Moriarty?”A traveling merchant seeks shelter in Moriarty's Saloon. All she wanted was a drink.





	1. Pit Stop

**Author's Note:**

> First fic on AO3! Sid Santiago isn't the Lone Wanderer, or the Sydney from Underworld.

Sid stuck to the Brass Lantern, usually. It was easy enough to get to, just past the spurting pipeline at the center of town. She’d heard warnings about Moriarty’s, about all the “bad sorts” that drank themselves to death up there. Sidney didn’t feel any particular way about all that. Whenever she made a stop in Megaton, it was her aching feet that kept her down at the Lantern. Wine was wine no matter where it came from - no point in climbing all those steps for a bottle of sour grapes.

 

But that night, she’d got in late. Mole rat trouble on the roads. Nothing Sid couldn’t handle, of course. By the time she limped in through the city gates, she found the Brass Lantern dark, quiet. The Stahls had the front door locked. The winds kicked up dust into her face, and Sidney shivered, tugged the high collar of her sweater up around her big, hooked nose.

 

High above her, over the yellow glow of the Church of Atom’s electric atom, she could see the sign. Black paint on white sheet metal:  _ Moriarty’s Saloon _ . It was just a bar, she figured. It couldn’t be all that bad. 

 

The salvaged metal scaffolding creaked and groaned with each slow, dragging step. As the winds picked up, Sid could feel it rattling under her feet. All of Megaton seemed to quake, shivering as though it were cold. The bobbing light bulbs, strung up around the walkways and bridges, twisted the shadows all around her. 

 

Sid found herself reaching for the tire iron at her hip, and scoffed to herself. Two weeks she’d been out on the road. That was too long. The wasteland made her batty, jumping at shadows, hearing footsteps. She decided then that she’d be better off sticking to the trade routes.

 

Sidney pushed through the door to the saloon. The fabled hot den of sin just looked, almost disappointingly, like any other pub. A big room of rusting metal, dimly lit, with a bar and some chairs and not much else. The wind whistled through the gaps in the walls, humming a low tone under the crackling of the radio. People sat around, all drinking alone. Not many, it looked like. It was late, even for a joint like this.

 

She hopped up on a barstool beside some man brooding by himself. Buzzed hair, dark clothes, one of those mysterious merc-looking types. He kept his eyes on the empty bottle of whiskey before him. Sid propped an elbow up on the counter, pulled down the scratchy collar of her sweater.

 

“Hey, you,” she said, leaning in. “Can I buy you a drink?”

 

Narrowed eyes turned on her. He didn’t bother to twist his head. Beneath a black beard, his lips were pale - alarmingly so. A scowl darkened the shadows in his face.

 

“I can buy my own drinks, lady,” he grumbled.

 

Groggy and achy as she was, Sid still caught the edge in his voice. She shrugged, though the movement was heavy in her coat, with all its pockets stuffed with loot. “Suit yourself.”

 

There was a commotion in the next room. A muffled shout, a bang against the door. When the door clicked opened, someone unseen spit out, “What do I even keep you around for, you useless zombie!?”

 

“I’m sorry, sir.” A voice like a dozen rusty gears, grinding all at once. Sid couldn’t recall ever seeing a ghoul in Megaton. But he stumbled out from the back room, in a grey t-shirt that failed to cover the rotting skin, the exposed muscles.

 

The ghoul turned his glazed, bluish-grey eyes on her. He cleared his throat, brushed unseen dirt from his clothes. She caught the glistening white of a protruding bone in his left arm.

 

“Welcome to Moriarty’s Saloon,” said the ghoul, stepping up behind the bar. “What can I get you?”

 

Against the dull yellowing of his skin, he had a bruise that seemed to shine. Reddish-purple, swollen just under his right eye. Beyond that, he wasn’t in bad shape as far as ghouls went. His lips hadn’t crumbled all the way off, and he had hair. Thick, oil-black tufts of it, sprouting from the remaining patches of his scalp.

 

His shoulders stiffened. “What?” he rasped. “Never seen a ghoul before?”

 

Sid hadn’t realized she’d been staring. She smiled, a little embarrassed, but she laughed to play it off. Half-jokingly, she said, “Not one as handsome as you.”

 

The ghoul coughed behind his ragged fist. He coughed for far too long. Then he rubbed the back of his neck, not quite meeting her gaze.

 

“I-Is there anything I can get you?” the ghoul sputtered.

 

Sid propped her elbows up on the bar. “I don’t suppose you got stimpaks here?”

 

“Sure. Yeah,” he said. “Twenty a pop.”

 

She dug out a purse from one of her many pockets as the ghoul ducked down behind the bar. They traded, and she noted the way his hands fumbled with her caps. The ghoul flinched away from her, went to busy himself at a rickety shelf stocked with bottles. 

 

Sid sucked in a deep, quiet breath. She readied the stimpak, squeezed her eyes shut. Without bothering to roll up her pant leg, she rammed the needle into her thigh, hard. The pain was temporary. She knew it would be. Sidney bowed her head, so that her dark hair could cover her cringing face.

 

Slowly, steadily, the pain melted away. Almost like she’d never been bitten in the first place. With a sigh, Sidney set the empty stimpak on the countertop. The ghoul was watching her out of the corner of his eye, so she threw him a shaky smile.

 

“What kinda wine you got here?” Sid asked. That cozy, pins-and-needles numbness crawled all the way down her injured leg. She massaged it with one hand, the other drumming the metal surface of the bar.

 

“Uh,” the ghoul turned back to the shelf. He grabbed a green glass bottle, foggy with a thick coat of dust. He squinted at it, turned it over in his hands. After a time he said, “Bottled.”

 

“Sounds great. I’ll take one.”

 

“Twelve caps.” The ghoul spoke a little slower, glancing at her. “Need a glass?”

 

“Nah.”

 

She set the caps on the bar while he set the bottle down before her. It had a label once, but it had long since faded away, leaving only a blank, yellowy sticker behind. The ghoul uncorked it with only a little bit of a struggle. 

 

Through the holes in his skin, his muscles flexed. Pinkish-grey, crisscrossed with veins and curiously sticky-looking. Sid wondered if it hurt. 

 

“Anything else I can get you, miss?”

 

“How about your name?” Sidney asked.

 

The ghoul cleared his throat, obscured his face with a decrepit hand. Watching him, Sid took a sip from the bottle. The wine stung the back of her throat, sharp and sour. She gagged, as quietly and casually as she could manage, and took another sip. No sense in wasting caps.

 

“Gob,” the ghoul managed. He made a sound that might have been a chuckle, and when he lowered his hand, Sid could see more of his teeth. “You’re...not gonna hit me?”

 

She furrowed her brow. “Why would I?”

 

“It’s always something with smoothskins,” he said with a shrug. “Hitting, throwing things, calling me names. You know how it goes.”

 

“You don’t say?” Sid’s eyes wandered to the shiner under his eye. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

 

Gob made a noncommittal grunt. He grabbed a patchy rag from somewhere on the shelf and went about wiping down the bar. Sid took a long drink from her bottle, grimacing. She wiped a watering eye on the sleeve of her coat.

 

“Why stick around a dive like this?” she asked, for the sake of saying something. Anything to take her mind off the swill churning in her guts.

 

“Long story,” said the ghoul, “I don’t wanna bore you.”

 

“I’ve got time,” she said with a little smile. This was the most she’d spoken with another person in days. She didn’t realize how much she’d missed it. “Sit down, have a drink with me.”

 

Gob cast a quick look over his shoulder, to the closed door he’d stumbled out of. “I shouldn’t. I’m on the clock.” He leaned in and said in a hushed tone, “Besides, between you and me, you couldn’t  _ pay _ me to drink that stuff.”

 

Sid snorted a laugh. The stone-faced merc a few stools down grumbled something, then stood up and left. The wind howled through the opened door, the air blurry with dust. And then the bar was empty, just Sid and the Gob under dreary yellow lights. She forced down another swallow of wine, felt it sear all the way down.

 

“When’re you getting outta here?” she choked.

 

He laughed, but there wasn’t any humor in it. “I’m not. Not for a long time, anyway.”

 

She raised her bushy eyebrows at this. Gob went about wiping down a glass with his rag, not looking at her. “I’m here ‘til I can pay off my debt to Colin Moriarty. But he charges room and board, so...”

 

“What d’you owe him for?” She folded her arms on the bar, leaned in toward him. Dizzy with exhaustion, feet aching, nothing sounded as enticing as a good story.

 

Gob’s cloudy eyes flickered around the room. A heavy gust made the metal walls groan, and the lights dimmed just a little bit. 

 

“He bought me off some slavers,” he said finally. “Said I could buy myself back, if I worked hard enough. It’s been years, though. There’s never enough caps.”

 

“Slavers?” Sidney prompted. She took a swig.

 

“It’s...not a very exciting story, I promise.” Gob tugged at his collar. “Y-You know, it’s late, if you wanted a room…”

 

“Oh, I didn’t mean to pry,” Sid waved a hand, cheeks hot. She forced a little laugh. “Lost my manners out in the wasteland again. Forgive me.”

 

He fumbled, nearly dropped the chipped glass between his hands. Gob set the glass down, stood there wringing his fraying rag for a time. Once more the lights faded, flickered, and when they glowed at full power the light of them stung Sidney’s eyes. Her head was swimming, and she held her chin in her hands, watching the ghoul.

 

“I’m sorry,” he sputtered, “It’s just...I’m not used to customers talking to me so much. Or anyone, really.”

 

She tried to smile, but she didn’t know if it showed. Sid was having a hard time feeling her face. “You’re doing fine.”

 

She thought maybe his face flushed, but it was hard to tell. There were so many colors in his face already - muddled greens and blues on pale flesh, the pinkish muscles peeking out, the glossy purple under his eye.

 

Outside the sky rumbled with a swirling dust storm. As the room blurred, Sid couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol, or the dust blowing in through the gaps in the walls. Maybe it was the booze that made his gravelly voice so soothing, suddenly. Like the hum of a generator, steady and reassuring.

 

He told her he was from Underworld. Sidney had never been - she’d heard rumors about the place, a whole city of ghouls. Other traders on the road told her it’d be best to stay away. But Gob said that his parents lived there, that he had a mother. He said she’d given him her blessing to leave, to go and see the world. He’d wanted his own adventures, to see all the good and bad of the Capital Wastes himself. It was the bad that’d found him first.

 

Gob didn’t say a whole lot about the slavers. He folded and unfolded his hands a lot, clenched them so tight that Sid could see the bones of his knuckles - polished white, impeccably clean. Gob said he was bought by a Mr. Colin Moriarty, and on that first night he’d been all smiles and soft words. With the lilt of an accent Gob didn’t recognize, Moriarty said he could buy himself back, if he saved up enough.

 

“Didn’t tell me he was charging rent.” Gob shook his head. “Two hundred caps a night. It’s normally 120 for a bed and...some company. But since he couldn’t rent my room out anymore, he said he needed ‘compensation’. Made it sound like it was good business. I tried talking him down to 150, and he smashed a glass in my face. Charged me for that, too.”

 

“Sounds like a real piece of work.” Sid’s words came out slow, all mashed together. “Where is this guy?”

 

Gob jerked his head back toward the door behind the bar. “Probably asleep by now. Or up working.”

 

“Working?” Sid scoffed. “ _ You’re _ the one who’s  _ working _ . What’s he doing back there?”

 

“I really shouldn’t...forget I said anything.” said Gob, but Sidney was already on her feet.

 

She didn’t realize she was angry until she was pounding on the door. Her whole body felt like cotton, and she wondered just what was in that wine. Or if it was even wine at all.

 

“What are you doing!?” Gob’s voice went high with panic, but Sid just knocked harder. She had no idea what she was doing.

 

Behind the door was a commotion, pounding feet. “Ach! What in the hell--!?”

 

The door wretched opened and a big man loomed over her. Thirty years ago he may have been handsome, but age had left him with a tangle of grey hair, and a round, weathered face etched with wrinkles.

 

“Moriarty?” Sid slurred, wobbling on her feet. “Mr. Colin Moriarty?”

 

“This better be real fucking important,” the man spat, and cast a dark look over her shoulder toward Gob. “And you! Letting drunkards stomp around like they own the place!”

 

“Excuse me. _I’m_ talking to you.” Sid braced an arm against the doorway, as if to trap the big man. “That your ghoul?”

 

“Yes, that’s my fucking ghoul!” The lights flickered again. It was only the storm, but for a moment Sid feared it was the force of the man’s anger. She could feel bile bubble up into her throat, and choked it down.

 

“How much?” Sid’s voice wavered a little, but she held his gaze.

 

“How _ much? _ ” Moriarty ran a meaty hand through his hair. “Listen, lass, I sell all types of pleasures here, but  _ that _ ain’t one of ‘em. And quite frankly, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

 

“How much for the ghoul, Mr. Moriarty?” It was getting harder to look him in the eye. There were two of him, fading in and out of each other. 

 

“The zombie’s not for sale. Now get the fuck out of my bar.”

 

“Or what?” Sid stood up as straight as she could, lifted her chin to make herself look taller, bigger. The floor rocked under her feet. “You gonna hit me? Like you hit your ghoul back there? You the sorta man who’d hit a lady, Mr. Moriarty?”

 

She woke up on the floor. 

 

Cold steel, rough with dirt and dust and years of crumbs. The shadows danced across the ceiling, footsteps scuffled, flesh hitting flesh with muffled slaps. Her lip was swollen, bitter and metallic with the taste of blood. Somewhere she heard Gob’s voice, but it sounded miles away. He was apologising.

 

A dark shape passed over her, and Sid’s vision snapped into focus. Moriarty frowned down at her, clicked his tongue. His heavy boot prodded her side. When he spoke his voice had gone quiet. Almost soft. 

 

“Now, just look at this mess. All because  _ you _ had to slack on the job. Clean up this shite.”

 

“Yes sir,” Gob stammered, “Sorry sir.”

 

Moriarty stepped over her, back into his room. As the door shut, she could just barely hear him grumble, “Stupid fucking corpse.”

 

Sidney stayed on her back for a time, rubbing her head. She coughed, felt the blood splatter over her nose and mouth. With a groan she rolled onto her side, spat out a tooth.

 

“You alright?” Gob was crouched down, at a distance. When Sid looked at him, she saw that one bruise had become four. She picked her tooth up off the floor and he grimaced.

 

“Don’t worry,” Sid gave a weak little smile. “This one was all rotten anyway.”

 

Even so, she ran a tongue over the rest of her teeth. The front two felt alarmingly loose. Her stomach lurched. She forced herself to sit up, wiped her mouth on her sleeve. It had been so long since she’d lost a tooth - she forgot how much they bled.

 

Gob pushed himself up to his feet, cleared his throat. “Do you need a hand, or…?”

 

She wanted to say no, but she was shaking. All adrenaline. Sid raised a hand, but Gob grabbed her by the crook of the elbow instead. He heaved her up with all the grace of taking out a garbage bag.

 

There was a smell to him. People were always saying that ghouls had a stink, but she’d never gotten close enough to know for herself. A putrid, rotten smell, like something left to die out in the sun. Between that, the booze, and all the blood she drooled onto the floor, Sid felt dizzy. She leaned into him, holding her breath.

 

The ghoul tensed, tightened his grip on her arm. Very gingerly, he said, “Come on. Let’s get you outta here.”

 

Sidney let him guide her across the empty saloon. Her legs were sludge beneath her, the room spinning. When he opened the door, she gave him a stupid, lopsided grin.

 

“Such a gentleman,” she said, and giggled. It came out a little too loud, a little too shrill.

 

She staggered out into the dull, greying light of the morning. The storm had passed. Sid wondered how long she’d been out, how long they’d spoken. She was so slow, but time was moving much too fast.

 

It felt better after she puked over the guardrail. Blood and bile splashed on the roof of the building below, and Sid felt a little more like herself. Her face ached, the hole in her gums blazing. Sid spat, and realized that Gob was still there. Politely averting his eyes, looking out over the scrap-heap that was Megaton.

 

She was standing on his right, where all the bruises blossomed. It was worse from the side. Noseless, face cragged with rot, teeth poking out where they shouldn’t have. Sid couldn’t look right at him, so she closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose.

 

“I’m sorry, Gob.” she said, and heard him startle. “Made a real mess in there, didn’t I?”

 

He didn’t speak for a while. When he leaned out over the guardrail, she felt the metal dip with his weight. Then, very quietly, he said, “You were really gonna buy me?”

 

“Sure. Then he’d have to let you leave.”

 

“And then?”

 

She hadn’t thought that far. Sidney wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “I dunno. You could go home. Or back on the road. Or, well, wherever.”

 

“Not a lotta folks would go out of their way for a stranger like that.” Gob said carefully. “What’s the catch?”

 

Sid made herself look at him. He was turned toward her now, so it wasn’t as bad. She shrugged. “I’d want someone to do the same for me, if I was in your shoes.”

That was all there was to it, really. Sid didn’t know if she believed in karma, but she liked to hope. If she did enough good, maybe the good would come back to her. But maybe it would cancel out, doing selfless things for selfish reasons.

 

He smiled at her. A gut-wrenchingly ugly smile, long yellow teeth in grey gums, ripped and discolored skin pulling, folding in ways it wasn’t supposed to. Sid’s own teeth had long since crumbled from years of eating cave fungus. She smiled back.

 

“Well,” he said, “thanks anyway. For trying, I mean.”

 

Sid gripped the railing and made herself stand upright. The aching was coming on, all over. She didn’t want Gob to see her struggle - it was bad enough he watched her take a fist to the face.

 

“I should get going,” she said, clearing her throat. “See you around, Gob.”

 

As she turned, Gob reached for her. His hand brushed the back of her coat, so gently she barely felt it, before he remembered himself and drew back. “W-wait! What’s your name?”

 

Sid hesitated. There were too many clouds in her head, she couldn’t think of a good pseudonym. So she just cast him a look over her shoulder, and said, “Sid Santiago.”

 

With that, she dug her hands into her pockets, and sauntered down the walkway. She held in her vomit until the ghoul and the saloon were out of sight, then spewed on the side of the road.

 

In a funny kind of way, she hoped that Gob thought she was cool. Bartenders made useful friends.


	2. For A Price

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sid makes a deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May or may not have forgotten that I was gonna post the rest of these chapters. I'll be tweaking the description and tags on this fic because I have no idea how AO3 works.

Sid wasn’t expecting Colin Moriarty to agree to speak with her. She showed up to the saloon in a motorcycle helmet, pockets full of psycho. But the old man looked her up and down, hitched his thumbs into the belt loops of his pants, and said, “Come with me. We’ll talk in my office.”

 

Gob kept his head lowered, as though he was fascinated by the dusty floor he swept. The bruises on his face had faded just a little bit, to a muddled pinkish-brown. He chanced a look up at Sidney as she passed. She pulled off her helmet, so he wouldn’t notice the way her hands trembled. 

 

Shaking out her short, dark hair, she winked at him. The ghoul nearly dropped his broom.

 

Moriarty’s office was a cramped rectangular room, with a chair and a terminal and not much else. He sat himself in the chair with a grunt, twisted it so he could face her. Arms crossed over his barrel chest, he sniffed.

 

“Well now, lass,” he said, and his voice had an airy kind of gentleness to it. “What is it you’d like to see me about? A business proposition, you said?”

 

Sid rolled back her shoulders, lifted her chin a little bit. She was standing above him, but his presence dwarfed hers. It was dark back here, in his room.

 

“Listen,” she said, cracking a smile. “We got off on the wrong foot. That was my fault. A couple drinks in me and I get...passionate. You know how it goes. I really am sorry.”

 

A jolly, booming laugh escaped his lips. Moriarty ran a hand over his grey beard. 

 

“Oh well, don’t you worry sweetheart,” he said tenderly. “You weren’t the first drunk asshole I’ve had to toss out of my bar, and you sure as hell won’t be the last. And you, at least, had the good graces to go down with just one hit.”

 

Sid didn’t find it funny. Two days later, and her ears were still ringing. But she brought a hand to her face, and gave her daintiest giggle. She’d rouged her lips that day, put on a dress. The white one, too tight at the top so it pushed her tits together, hugged the wide curve of her hips.

 

“You’re not here to grovel,” Moriarty said. “What is it, then?”

 

Sidney cocked a hip, helmet nested in the crook of her arm. “The ghoul.”

 

He chuckled, but he kept his eyes on her. There was the slightest twitch in his brow. “You’re serious? Pretty young thing like you? You don’t want that drooling, bumbling zombie.”

 

“Oh, sure I do.” She followed his lead, speaking sweetly, pouting her deep red lips. “How much do you want for him?”

 

“I’m no slaver, lass. I can sell you a girl, but only for the evening.” His nose wrinkled. “If  _ that’s _ the sort of arrangement you’d like for the corpse…”

 

For a long while he didn’t say anything, just put his hand to his chin. Scrunched and unscrunched his face a few times. Sid didn’t like the way he was looking at her. 

 

She cleared her throat. “Come on now, Mr. Moriarty. It’d hardly be slaving, wouldn’t it? I mean, it’s only a  _ ghoul. _ ”

 

She made sure to say the word with just the right amount of venom, to curl her lip just so. Like she hadn’t spent the last two days thinking about him. Going in circles, mustering the courage, and picking out all the excuses in the world to walk away. 

 

Everybody had their problems. Sidney couldn’t save them all. It wasn’t her job to save anybody. She didn’t even know him. 

 

Sid could leave whenever she wanted - she had caps, guns, friends all over. Gob just had this rust bucket, with a rag and some piss wine, and the back of Moriarty’s hand. There were plenty of people in the Capital Wastes who would’ve deserved that. That ghoul wasn’t one of them. 

 

“ ‘S more complicated than that, I’m afraid,” Moriarty chuckled. He shook his head with a cool little smile,  _ tsked _ . “I’ve sunk a lot of caps into that pile of filth. He’s racked up quite the debt.”

 

This wasn’t her responsibility. She was a merchant, not some knight in shining armor. The door was closed, but it wasn’t locked. Outside the world was waiting for her.

 

It was her fault Moriarty slapped him around that night. But he’d thanked her. Really, honestly thanked her. Just for trying. The smile he’d given her was rotten, horrible to look at, and she couldn’t get it out of her head.

 

“How much?” she heard herself say.

 

Moriarty raised his grey eyebrows. He swung his chair around, smashed some buttons on his terminal. Green lights danced across his pale face.

 

“Oh, a good sixteen thousand caps by now.” He spoke the number so easily, so detached from it, as though he were talking about the weather.

 

In all her twenty-two years, that was more money than Sid had ever seen in one place.

 

“Sixteen thousand, eight-hundred and twenty-six, to be precise. And I haven’t charged tonight’s rent just yet.”

 

She could’ve shit herself. 

 

He was having a laugh again, and she was vaguely aware that it was at her. Sid ran a hand over her face, took a slow, steady breath.

 

“I get the feelin’ he’s a little out of your budget,” he said.

 

Sid cleared her throat. She fidgeted with her helmet, passed it from one hand to the other. “Between you and me,” she said, “it sounds like you got fucked. The boy doesn’t even have all his skin.”

 

The grin stayed on his face, but she caught the way his nostrils flared. The way his eyes narrowed, just a little bit. “I’ve been housing and feeding the bastard for nearly 14 years now. Stupid, good-for-nothing sack of shite, but I intend to get my caps’ worth.”

 

She considered this, biting her lip. Her lipstick felt waxy on her teeth. “What if he finds somewhere else to stay?”

 

“Why? He doesn’t need to be anywhere else. Everything he’s good for is right here.”

 

That was bullshit and she knew it. They both did. Sid held his beady gaze, kept her expression cool. Challenging him head-on would only lose her more teeth. Colin Moriarty was bigger than she was. Stronger, richer. And, rumor had it, he knew people. The kinds of people Sid never wanted to meet. 

 

She had an idea that churned her stomach, filled it with lead. Suddenly she weighed a million pounds, knees weak with the effort to stay upright. The tiny room seemed to much smaller, dingy walls closing in all around.

 

She didn’t have to, she reminded herself. She could just go.

 

He was surprised that she didn’t want to hit him. He’d been here fourteen years.

 

“Seventeen grand.” Sid croaked. “Gonna need some time, but I’ll get it to you.”

 

Moriarty furrowed his heavy brow, forehead creased with deep, dark lines. Sid stepped forward, a hand in her pocket. “I want it in writing, so you don’t fuck me on this. The rent’s his problem, but I’ll be back with your payments at least once a month. I can get you at least a thousand, maybe more. And when we’re all squared away, he’s free to go.”

 

Jaw tense, bile rising in the back of her throat, Sid dug out her purse. She set her helmet down on an end table between them, too forceful, so the bang of it would make him flinch. She slid her hand into her purse and the caps were so cool, so smooth and comforting against her tawny skin.

 

“Go on.” She nodded toward Moriarty’s terminal. “Write us up a contract.”

 

“And if you decide to skip your payments?” He probed.

 

“Then the ghoul stays here until I’m all caught up.” Sid broke eye contact first. She needed to count out the cash, but more importantly, she needed to look demure. Make him think that he won. “You’re getting paid either way.”

 

Moriarty gave a low, dry laugh. Thick fingers tapped away at the keyboard. “Lotta trouble for a damned zombie.”

 

Sidney gave a little hum. He was right, though. She was piling the caps out of the table, gleaming red and silver in the low lights. With each click of a terminal key, her purse grew thinner and thinner. She’d already sold all her wares, between the Lantern and Craterside Supply. This was everything.

 

She read the contract before she gave up her earnings. One thousand caps were to be paid each month, until Gob was out of the red. Moriarty made Sid type in her name. Fingers clumsy and awkward, unfamiliar with the blocky buttons of a terminal, the process seemed to take years. All the while the number loomed over her. One thousand, for more than a year.

 

She signed, then he signed, and he pushed himself up to his feet. Colin Moriarty was all smiles, and when he spoke it was with an air of smugness. 

 

“Well then, Miss Santiago. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you. I trust you have tonight’s fee, then? Unless you’ve been talking with caps you haven’t got.”

 

“ _ Two _ thousand,” she said, giving his hand a firm squeeze. “I’ll be in touch.”

 

He placed his hand over hers. His skin was smoother than she’d expected. Although, she figured, it wasn’t like he was breaking his back trying to keep the place running. Moriarty did all his work with beer and crafty words. He had people to do the rough stuff.

 

He leaned down a little, to look her in the eye. “I hope you’re happy with your investment, lass.”

 

Sid collected her helmet and the last of her caps. She let the door slam on her way out.

 

Sidney was a trader by nature. She delighted more in passing caps than saving them. Investments were for bigwigs and fat cats - when Sid dropped a buck, she wanted something for it, something she could carry and hold right then. Not a maybe, or a someday. Someday might not find her before the raiders or the hungry mirelurks did.

 

Someone blew smoke in her face. Coughing, batting the air, Sid wheeled on the woman leaned up beside the doorway to Moriarty’s office. Pasty and pretty, a lady with a mop of red hair sucked at a hand-rolled cigarette. She watched Sidney with half-lidded eyes.

 

A working girl, Sid could tell by her clothes. Every less-than-respectable bar had at least one. But the look she was giving her was more suspicious than sultry. Sid reared up her shoulders, looked her in the eye.

 

“Miss,” she greeted, with a little smile and a nod. The woman didn’t smile back.

 

“Never seen you around,” the woman’s voice was beautiful. Smooth and enticing as a pack of pre-War smokes. Sid felt herself gulp. “What was that about?”

 

“Moriarty didn’t tell me he had a secretary.” said Sid.

 

“Funny,” she said, but she wasn’t smiling. “Walls ain’t thick here. I heard that deal you struck in there.”

 

Sid glanced around. The saloon was busier than the last time she’d come by, and she couldn’t see Gob. The bar was lined with scruffy, seedy types, grimacing into their beer bottles. She saw the pale-lipped guy who’d given her the cold shoulder, and once again, he didn’t pay her any mind. From the next room over, she thought she heard the rusty saw blade scratch of the ghoul’s voice. Too far for her to make out the words.

 

“What do you want with Gob?” the lady sized her up. “You some kinda sicko?”

 

“Jesus,” said Sid. “What  _ is _ it with you people?”

 

She didn’t miss the way the lady’s shoulders loosened. Her breathing came a little easier with relief. Even so, her expression didn’t change. “Well, what then? Most folks don’t just roll outta bed and decide to go out and buy their very own ghoul.”

 

“You seem awfully interested.” Sid rolled the helmet idly between her hands.

 

The redhead sighed smoke right into Sidney’s face. Sid didn’t look away this time, though her eyes stung for it. They were quiet a moment, staring at one another. Whoever she was, she was easier to look at than that old fart Moriarty.

 

“Listen.” she said, quiet enough so only Sidney could hear. “The name’s Nova. I work here, same as Gob. Well, not  _ exactly _ the same. But I know the guy. I know he might look like a corpse, but he’s a human being. A good one.”

 

“Then I don’t see what’s got you so haughty.” Sidney said. “I’m trying to give the guy a hand.”

 

“This is the wasteland, sugar,” Nova said. “Every man for himself. No one does anything for free.”

 

She could’ve said something slick, made Nova think she was the last shred of good in this town. But working girls were smarter than that. So, Sidney merely shrugged her shoulders, and said, “I’m not. Just trying to rack up some good karma.”

 

“For a grand a month?” Nova scoffed, and Sid could feel the color draining from her face. She needed to sit down. She needed a drink.

 

Sidney Santiago, she scolded herself. You sucker. You absolute fucking sucker.

 

From the next room came the screech of a chair pushed back across the floor. A shout, thick and slurred, “I said I’ll pay when I pay, fucking zombie!”

 

“Alright, alright! Sheesh.”  When Gob came into view, he was blotting himself with that musty old rag. His gnarled face dripped, stinking of booze. 

 

There was beer splashed down the front of his shirt. The fabric clung tighter than Sid would’ve liked. She could see where he was missing a chunk of flesh just under the collarbone, a hollow patch where it shouldn’t have been.  

 

His foggy eyes caught sight of them there, and he ducked his head down, hurried around to his post behind the bar. Gob coughed, draped the rag over one shoulder. He shuffled around with some spotty glasses, trying to look busy. Then he cleared his throat, and cast the ladies a wilting look over his shoulder.

 

“Some people, huh?” he said. Then he made a noise, and Sid couldn’t tell if it was a chuckle or a fly caught in his throat.

 

From the corner of her eye, Sid could see that Nova was staring at her. Arms crossed, cigarette smoldering between full, pink lips. Though her face was cool, calm, Sidney couldn’t help but feel like she was judging her.

 

Sid stuck her lip out. Maybe she was projecting, but maybe she wasn’t. Either way, Sid decided to accept it. Let the lady judge her, if that’s what she wanted. But let it be a good judgment.

 

She turned to the ghoul. “Which people?” 

 

“Oh, no, don’t sweat it.” He held up a greenish hand. “Drunks, you know?”

 

Sid stepped up beside him, slipped her helmet on. “Which people, Gob?”

 

It could’ve been her imagination, but she thought she saw him crack a little smile. It was hard to tell, with his lips crumbling the way they were. Gob tipped his head back to the room he’d come from. “People in dirty blue suits. With a little brown beard, and a gold tooth.”

 

She had psycho in her pocket. Sid reached passed him, grabbed a brown glass bottle by the neck. “I’m gonna pay for this later, okay?”

 

“Whatever you want, Santiago.”

 

She stole a glance back at Nova, to make sure she was still watching. In a single swing, she smashed the bottle against the bar. The chime of broken glass rang out through the air, warm beer spilling out onto the floor, onto her dress.

 

None of the other patrons so much as lifted their heads. Not even as Sidney rounded the corner, jagged glass in one hand, the other digging for her needle full of psycho.

 

“And I’ll clean that up, too,” she assured him.

 

Because she was a nice fucking person.


	3. Left Foot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Has it really been over a year since I updated? Whoops..

It was well after midnight before Gob got around to bussing the tables. The night’s last bar fight left sparkling crystals of broken glass strewn all across the floor. The ghoul skirted around it, stepped over the unconscious body of some mercenary - nobody important, just another drifter. He loaded up his tray with half-drained bottles, cups ringed in beer foam, ashtrays stuffed with cigar butts trailing smoke.

 

“Watch your step, Sid,” he said over his shoulder. His companion leaned against the doorway to the side lounge of the saloon, cradling bitter coffee in a mug with a broken handle. Sid raised her cup to him, and took a drink.  

 

“You need a hand?” she asked from a distance.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” said Gob. “I’ve dealt with worse. Besides, Moriarty’d kill me.”

 

She made a show of looking around, craning her neck out in an exaggerated arch. Lamplight gleamed like stars in her dark, greasy hair. When she smiled he noticed the bags under her eyes, hanging low and heavy.

 

“I don’t see any old Irish fucks around here,” she said. “Where d’you keep the broom?”

 

“You really don’t have to,” he said. The tray wobbled in his hand, and he steadied it in the crook of his elbow. His exposed nerves tingled at the feeling, cold and sticky with old booze.

 

When Gob looked back up, Sid was gone. The saloon was empty, so she didn’t need to yell to be heard. “Back by the ice box here, right?”

 

The ghoul bit what was left of his lip. He leaned out over a puddle of blood on the floor, toward the empty vodka bottle balanced at the edge of the table.

 

With a whine of static, the radio came to life in the next room. Gob hadn’t even noticed it’d been turned off. He fumbled, knocked over the bottle, and caught it before it hit the ground. Three Dog’s voice crackled in through the old speakers.

 

_“Don’t feed the yao gui. That is all.”_

 

The music kicked up, slow and brassy, swelling in the musty air. Sid sauntered back into the lounge, dragging an old broom with her. The poor thing had been there longer than Gob had, missing half of its bristles, crusty with decades’ worth of blood and grime. Its splintering handle looked flimsy between her thick, squared hands.

 

She was sweeping before he could ask her not to. Shards of glass plinked into a glittery heap. Gob saw her yawn silently behind her hand and moved toward her, balancing his tray of filth. She caught him looking her way and offered a sleepy, lopsided grin. Sid had teeth like melting candles, but that didn’t stop his heart from lurching up into his throat.

 

“Th-thanks,” he managed. Gob shuffled around the mess on the floor, over the man who snored gently in his pool of whiskey.

 

“Don’t mention it, handsome.” said Sidney. She was joking - she had to be - but Gob could feel the color rushing to his face. He stumbled over his own feet on his way out of the lounge, dipped forward to keep from spilling the dishes all over the floor. They rattled, tottered, but all he lost were a few dead cigarettes.

 

Gob could hear her giggling at his back.

 

He careened around the bar, back to the shoddy sink where he dumped the tray and cursed under his breath. Moriarty was always calling him a stupid, bumbling zombie. Gob couldn’t remember if he’d always been that way, or if it was the power of suggestion. If hearing over and over that he was clumsy and useless made it so. He scrubbed at the dishes, greenish hands pruning in the dirty water.

 

Sid must have said something to him. Gob didn’t catch it the first time, but then she stuck her head out from behind the tattered curtain, and called, “Hey, did you hear me?”

 

“Sorry.” Gob startled, craned his neck around to see her. Shadows dipped into the pockmarks on her wide face. She made him think of the moon. “What did you say?”

 

“I said, you’re real slick.” said Sidney.

 

“That’s cute.” Gob grumbled. He shook the water from his patchy hands, wiped them on his pant legs. It was cleaner than any of the rags he used around the bar.

 

Sid propped herself up with the broom, frowned at him. “No, honest! Anyone else would’ve dropped it. The whole tray, just…” She waved a hand through the air, made a noise that was probably supposed to be a crash. It sounded a little like the ocean.

 

“I dunno,” Gob rubbed the back of his neck, down the rough ridge of his exposed vertebrae. He figured she was joking again, but it wasn’t like her to lay it on this thick.

 

“I know I would’ve biffed it,” Sid chuckled. “Just glass and mayhem all over. A cigarette in the eye, probably. You know, I stopped at the Muddy Rudder last week. Danced with this girl there, Trinnie, and you know what she said to me? She said I had three left feet. Not even two - three!”

 

“You can’t dance?” Gob squinted at her.

Sid stuck up her big, hooked nose. “Sure I can.”

 

She began to sway. She held the broom at arms length, swooped left and right in wide arcs, almost in time with the music on the radio. The movement all came from just above the hips, somehow. Her feet never left the floor. Gob assumed she was fooling around and laughed. Sidney huffed.

 

“What? It’s hard when your partner’s got no feet.” Sid sounded indignant, but he could see the hint of a smile on her lips. “C’mere.”

 

They stood watching each other for a while. Then it sunk in, just what she was asking for. Gob’s hand went to his neck again, the other to his face. He sputtered, making noises that he couldn’t quite string into words. Sidney propped her broom up against the wall and rounded the corner, extending both hands.

 

“Come on now, if you’ve got such fancy feet,” she said. “Dance with me.”

 

There was that stupid, hopeful part of him that wondered. _Maybe, maybe..._ But it was just a game, wasn’t it? All in good fun. This would become another of Sid’s anecdotes, the ones she told even when nobody asked. _“The time I danced with a corpse.”_ It didn’t mean anything. 

 

He took too long to respond. Sidney folded her thick, soft arms across her chest, frowned at him. Gob could hear her tapping her foot.

 

“Unless,” she arched a heavy eyebrow, “ _You_ can’t dance, either?”

 

Gob felt himself smile. Sid was the only one who didn’t cringe when he showed his teeth. “Up until tonight, I thought everybody knew how to dance.”

 

He cast a glance toward Moriarty’s room. No light spilled out through the cracks under the door. At this time of night, he’d surely be passed out, drunk or full of jet. Maybe both. Gob swallowed. He passed by the boss’s door with quiet, careful steps.

 

The song came to an end as he rounded the bar. The lull between tracks was only a fraction of a second, but it was enough to give him pause. Sidney smirked, and for a moment he saw her jagged teeth. The gap on the bottom row, on the right side.

 

She’d lost a tooth for him that night. They were strangers, but she wanted to help. Just because.

 

Then came the brass, notes bouncing on trumpets and sax. Gob knew this song, but he couldn’t recall the name. It didn’t have any words.

 

Sid held out her hands to him, and waited. She tilted her head to look up at him, pin-straight hair falling from her tawny face. Gob realized he must have pulled a face, because her smile softened, and she said, “If you really don’t want to, I’m not gonna force you. I can have just as much fun dancing by myself.”

 

She did a little shimmy to drive the point home. It wasn’t even close to the right tempo.

 

“Oh! No, I just,” Gob cleared his throat. Suddenly it was hard to be nervous, with her wiggling around like that.

 

He reached for her, stopped just short of touching skin. An old habit - no one liked the feel of a clammy old corpse. But she clasped his hands and pulled him in toward her. Gob pitched forward, staggered before he could fall into her. Her eyeline was just under the hole where his nose used to be, and he knew if he looked right at her his legs would give out altogether. Gob shifted his grip on her hands, so that he was the one leading. Her fingers were calloused, sandpaper against the bones and muscles that peeked out from the holes in his skin.

 

He stomped on her foot without meaning to. Sid yelped, hopped up and down. Gob could hear the blood rushing through his ears.

 

“Jesus!” she hissed.

 

“Shit, sorry!” Gob blurted. He froze, then realized she was laughing. The ghoul felt his shoulders relax, though his heart knocked heavy against his ribcage. “Y-You’ve gotta move your feet, though. Like this.”

 

He was grateful when she turned away from him, to look down at their feet. “Like what?”

 

“You sorta...make a box, like this.” He stepped gingerly, right to left, up and down. Sidney followed, though their boots tapped together when they weren’t supposed to, scuffling on the dusty metal floor. The rest of her body went stiff, her brow scrunched in concentration.

 

Then she was in step with him, rocking in time with the ancient band on the radio. Her grip tightened, and her skin warm against his. Gob could feel his palms going clammy, but she didn’t seem to mind.

 

“That’s it,” he said, “You’re getting it.”

 

Sid chuckled. “See? Told you I could dance.”

 

“Sorry I doubted you.” He took a wide step away from her, held her at arms length. A nervous look flashed across her face, only for a moment. Gob pulled her back in without missing a beat, and it sent her laughing again.

 

“Where’d you learn all this, anyway?” she asked. “The Pig offer lessons?”

 

Gob snorted. He twirled her, and she let him, though she hobbled a little. Her oversized coat brushed up a little cloud of dust around her feet. When she stepped back to him it was closer, so close he could feel her breath on the naked tendons of his neck. Hot, bitter with the smell of coffee.

 

He cleared his throat, tilted his head away. “Don’t laugh,” he said, “But my mom taught me.”

 

She swayed with him for a while. Gob could feel her eyes on him. Finally, she said, “Why would I laugh?”

 

“It’s embarrassing, isn’t it?” The ghoul ventured. He chanced a look down at her, and her eyes were so big, deep black pits that swallowed up all the light. He could see himself in them, molding, ghastly.

 

“Is it really?” she asked. “Why’s that?”

 

He’d almost forgotten. She’d mentioned it once, in passing. Sidney came out of Little Lamplight. No parents to speak of. She never seemed too beat up over it, but Gob couldn’t help but wonder. He couldn’t imagine where he’d be without Carol. He didn’t even want to think about it.

 

“Nevermind,” he said. Her mouth, reddish with fading lipstick, quirked into a little grin and he found himself laughing.

 

“She taught you good,” Sidney sighed. She let go of his hand while he swung her away, and when she flounced back, she curled it around the small of his back. Gob nearly stepped on her foot again, ears ringing.

 

He didn’t know what to say to that. He couldn’t quite remember how to speak at all.

 

It was nothing, he told himself. It had to be nothing. A smoothskin like her, with all her ink-black hair, smelling of dust and sweat like something alive. Her arm around him was firm with muscles, but she held him so gently he didn’t want to think of anything else. It didn’t have to mean anything at all.


End file.
